V. I. Lenin

On Proletarian Culture[1]

Written:October 8, 1920, 1920First Published:1926; Published according to the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 31, pages 316-317Translated:Julius KatzerTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

We see fromIzvestiaof October 8 that, in
    his address to the Proletcult Congress, Comrade Lunacharsky said
    things that werediametrically oppositeto what he and I
    had agreed upon yesterday.[2]

It is necessary that a draft resolution (of the Proletcult
    Congress) should be drawn up with the utmost urgency, and that it
    should be endorsed by the Central Committee, in time to have it
    put to the voteat this verysession of the
    Proletcult. On behalf of the Central Committee it should be
    submitted not later than today, for endorsement both by the
    Collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Education and by
    the Proletcult Congress, because the Congress is closing
    today.

Draft Resolution

1) All educational work in the Soviet Republic of workers and
    peasants, in the field of political education in general and in
    the field of art in particular, should be imbued with the spirit
    of the class struggle being waged by the proletariat for the
    successful achievement of the aims of its dictatorship, i.e., the
    overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the abolition of classes, and the
    elimination of all forms of exploitation of man by man.

2) Hence, the proletariat, both through its vanguardthe
    Communist Party-and through the many types of proletarian
    organisations in general, should display the utmost activity and
    play the leading part in all the work of public education.

3) All the experience of modern history and, particularly, the
      more than half-century-old revolutionary struggle of the
      proletariat of all countries since the appearance of theCommunist Manifestohas unquestionably demonstrated that
      the Marxist world outlook is the only true expression of the
      interests, the viewpoint, and the culture of the revolutionary
      proletariat.

4) Marxism has won its historic significance as the ideology of
    the revolutionary proletariat because, far from rejecting the most
    valuable achievements of the bourgeois epoch, it has, on the
    contrary, assimilated and refashioned everything of value in the
    more than two thousand years of the development of human thought
    and culture. Only further work on this basis and in this
    direction, inspired by the practical experience of the proletarian
    dictatorship as the final stage in the struggle against every form
    of exploitation, can be recognised as the development of a genuine 
      proletarian culture.

5) Adhering unswervingly to this stand of principle, the
    All-Russia Proletcult Congress rejects in the most resolute
    manner, as theoretically unsound and practically harmful, all
    attempts to invent one’s own particular brand of culture, to
    remain isolated in self-contained organisations, to draw a line
    dividing the field of work of the People’s Commissariat of
    Education and the Proletcult, or to set up a Proletcult "autonomy"
    within establishments under the People’s Commissariat of
    Education and so forth. On the contrary, the Congress enjoins all
    Proletcult organisations to fully consider themselves in duty
    bound to act as auxiliary bodies of the network of establishments
    under the People’s Commissariat of Education, and to
    accomplish their tasks under the general guidance of the Soviet
    authorities (specifically, of the People’s Commissariat of
    Education) and of the Russian Communist Party, as part of the
    tasks of the proletarian dictatorship.

Comrade Lunacharsky says that his words have been distorted. In
    that case this resolution is needed all themoreurgently.

[1]99	Lenin drew up this draft resolution for the First All-Russia
    Congress of Pioletcult, which met in Moscow from October 5 to
    October 12, 1920. When the Political Bureau of the Central
    Committee of the Party discussed the question of Proletcult on
    October 9 and 11, it proceeded from Lenin's draft resolution. It
    was proposed to the Communist group of the Congress that it pass a
    resolution putting central and local Proletcult organisations
    under the control of the People's Commissariat of Education. The
    resolution was in keeping with Lenin's ideas and was unanimously
    approved by the Congress. However, after the Congress, some
    Proletcult leaders began to voice disagreement with the resolution
    and misinterpreted it to the rank and file, alleging that the
    Central Committee of the Communist Party was hamstringing the
    workers in the sphere of the arts and aiming at dissolving
    Proletcult. The Central Committee of the Party refuted these
    demagogical insinuations in its letter "On Proletcult
    Organisations" which gave a detailed analysis of Proletcult
    mistakes. The letter was published in Pravda No. 270 on December
    1, 1920.

[2]On October 8, 1920, Izvestia reported Lunacharsky as saying in his
    speech at the Proletcult Congress that Proletcult must be assured
    a special status and complete autonomy. Recalling this episode,
    Lunacharsky wrote in his reminiscences: “At the time oh the
    Proletcult Congress in October 1920, Vladimir Ilyich instructed me
    to attend it and pointed out quite definitely that Proletcult
    should be subordinated to the People's Commissariat of Education,
    should regard itself as one of its institutions, and so on. In
    short, he wanted us to bring Proletcult closer to the state. At
    the same time, he took steps to bring it closer to the Party. I
    spoke at the Congress in a rather non-committal and conciliatory
    way, and the version sent to Vladimir Ilyich was even milder. He
    summoned me and gave me a good talking-to.”